Congress becomes gender-neutral

[Joel S. Berson]

At 1/9/2009 01:34 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>Didn't see any coverage of this on the language sites yet....
>
>http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/06/house-gender-neutral/
>
>Jesse Sheidlower
>OED

The US House of Representatives has long and honourable precedent for
the use of "chair" in the sense of "presiding officer".  It has
nearly as long a history (9.b., 1658-9) as "chairman" (1.a.,
1654).  "Chairwoman" is a bit later (1699).  See OED.

Joel

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